April 11 - I’m standing at the base of the tree leaning back on my harness and peering at the platform sixty feet above. Ingmar is encouraging me to get up there. The press conference is supposed to start in forty-five minutes and we need to get into position. Ingmar’s fully informed about my slightly spastic condition and I can tell he’s not sure if I can still do this. I give him a thumbs up and start up the rope.

By the time the camera crews arrive, we’re both up on the platform with our feet dangling down. The cameras focus in as Ingmar rappels down the rope. I stay up in the tree. The CH TV guy comes over with a microphone and battery pack and attaches them to the end of the rope. I haul the rope up and clip the mike to my coat collar. The reporter calls her questions up to me and I shout back down at her, forgetting about the mike.

The reporters and cameras finally leave and I’m alone up in the tree. The platform is a pair of four by eight foot plywood sheets reinforced with two by fours. It looks like a raft on the open ocean. Ropes and rigging are everywhere and the white tarps billow in the wind like sails. The plywood planks are not quite level and they creak and sway as I move around.

It’s a two-room platform: one plank is the bedroom, with a tiny tent nailed to it. The other serves as the living room (a folding chair) and kitchen (a camp stove and a pot). The bathroom is a bucket hanging below the tree-sit. Everything is lashed down or clipped in, but things fall overboard anyway: two pens, my lighter, the lid to my thermos.

I’m tied to the tree on a ten-foot leash tethered to my harness that stays on every moment, even when I’m sleeping. The thing wraps itself around my legs every time I turn around and threatens to knock small untethered objects off the platform.

I’m afraid of falling. Everyone is; people are hardwired that way. Even though I have total confidence in the platform and the safety line, that giddy feeling comes and goes, especially when I’m moving around close to the edge or getting ready to descend down the rope.

There’s a constant wind up here and the roar of traffic is louder. Through the trees to the south I can just make out a bare knoll and the entrance to the Langford Cave, a 40-meter-long karst cavity that draws cavers from all over the region.

The Songhees First Nation named this place Spaet Mountain. The city of Langford calls it Skirt Mountain. The developer has re-named it Bear Mountain to go along with the marketing of their resort and property sales.

A pileated woodpecker flies into the grove of dead snags next to the platform and lands on a trunk at eye level. It hammers away at the wood for a few moments and then swoops over the trail and up a rotten stump. A hummingbird zips by, flashing green. The forest floor is carpeted with trillium and lilies.

As night falls, the traffic dies down and the frogs start up. The tree sways slightly in the wind and the thrushes sing their evening songs. I crawl into the tiny tent and curl up in my sleeping bag, tugging at the tether every time I turn over. Waking up in the middle of the night, I hear an owl hooting.

Thursday morning, the sun is rising through the trees and a winter wren is scolding me nearby. I crawl out of my cocoon, bleary-eyed, and go through the routine of making a pot of tea, taking a shit in the bucket, rolling a cigarette and surveying the forest. I feel wonderful.

People come to visit: local supporters, more journalists, and curious neighbours. Food donations are piling up under a tarp Ingmar tied up for a base camp. The food has to be dealt with because there are raccoons (and possibly bears) in the area, so I haul it up to the platform and make a space in a gear bag for cans of soup, noodles, oatmeal, and cookies.

Cheryl Bryce, the lands manager for the Songhees First Nation, stops by to lend her support and videotape the tree-sit. She’s disturbed that some members of the band council are supporting the development rather than voting to protect the environmental values of their traditional territory. I come down the rope and we chat for a half an hour.

The clouds gather and an icy wind picks up. I go to bed early, snuggled down in the bottom of the sleeping bag with an extra fleece blanket.

Friday dawns with threatening clouds. Then a threatening little man with a mustache: the lands manager for the Provincial Capitol Commission. He’s been sent to determine whether I’m on PCC land, and to grumble at me about the commission’s liability if someone gets hurt and sues them. I promise I won’t hurt anybody and I won’t sue anybody. He suggests if I’m trespassing, he may get the police involved. I invite him to the salmon barbecue scheduled for later tonight. He studies me for a minute without responding and then marches off into the forest with his maps in hand.

I don’t know if he’ll call the police, but even if they show up, they won’t be able to arrest me because I’m sixty feet up in a tree. The RCMP in Vancouver has a special climbing team for these kind of situations, but it takes a few days to assemble. I contemplate the legal implications of criminal trespass charges and court injunctions.

Later: I’m bored, so I use my borrowed cell phone to call the developers’ head office. Bear Mountain Resort and Bear Mountain Properties are the forces behind this project and I figure it’s only polite to introduce myself. But it seems no one is available on this Friday afternoon, not even a receptionist, so I leave a cheery message in the general mailbox describing the wildlife in the area and inviting them all to the salmon barbecue.

The rain holds off, miraculously. At dinnertime, three dozen tree-huggers are gathered around a small campfire devouring barbecued salmon, roasted weiners, mashed potatoes, and bags of fruit and cookies. Mary Vickers, a Nuxalk Nation woman from Bella Bella, provided the salmon, and she gets us all to join hands while she says a prayer to the spirits and the ancestors to bless our work here. Ingmar stands up on a stump and lays out the plan: seven people are needed to take charge of the tree-sit for one day a week. Each person would either sit in the tree for twenty-four hours or find another person to do it. He’ll provide the training.

By Saturday, I’m a little weary of the tiny platform, the harness, and the shit bucket. My legs and arms are shaky from climbing up and down the rope. I’m longing for a hot shower and a soft bed. But still I sit for hours mesmerized, staring out into the forest, listening to the birds, and feeling my senses expand to the limit of hearing and vision.

On Sunday morning, the relief shift arrives. Keith lives nearby and he has no idea how to climb a tree, but he’s willing to learn and Ingmar’s willing to teach him. I rappel down for the last time. My man Dan is there to give me a ride home.

I don’t want folks to get the idea that I’m some kind of action hero. I’m retired from all that now. This was just a one-time special event – more of a vacation than an action; more of a cameo than a comeback. I joked with the folks watching me climb that I’m living proof: almost anyone can do this shit. And it’s true – the biggest obstacle is conquering the fear of falling, the fear of failing, the fear of powerlessness. The campaign is just now beginning, but folks are digging in for the long haul. Cheers to the Spaet Mountain defenders!

12 comments:

You are awesome! It is also a lot harder than it looks to squat over a bucket. A recycled toilet seat modified with "L" brackets to fit the outside lip of the bucket works great. Much love to all forest defenders! Keep up the great work. E-mail anytime if you need help/advice/inspiration.jmuskratnorcal@yahoo.com

I arrived on this site via adbusters magazine, and had no idea that there has been a tree sit taking place all year. I'm studying in Vancouver but my parents live in Langford so I still consider it home. I barely recognize the town when I visit. Good old blue collar white trash Langford has long been the butt of every Victoria joke and probably needed some development but I'm appalled by how it is taking place. It's like the developers live in some mythical dimension where global warming doesn't exist and there is no such thing as a problem you can't shop your way out of. They've intentionally created a car dependent community where people live in their generic McMansions and drive their SUV's to a dozen different big box stores. From what I've seen on Bear Mountain it seems like there has been no attempt to work with the ecology and produce sustainable development, just to pave over everything and make sure the sterile, generic houses which I'll never afford are big enough to accomodate expanding waistlines. My old neighborhood is flooded with deer with no place left to go. It's not all bad I guess, there is a free trolley and it's nice to see the new little businesses which seem to be thriving in downtown Langford. And yeah, I know I'm hypocritically not involved in your protest because I'm caught up in my big city life, but I still think that the Bear Mountain development is a repugnant travesty and it breaks my heart.

oh, my spirit is with you--all of you who are participating in this action. do not forget to follow your breathe and remember that it is all a state of mind and a state of being. calm, slow determination is all it ever takes...and a non-attachment to the results. whatever they may be, the important thing is how youŕe doing what youŕe doing.

The whole character of the Langford Bear Mountain disaster is further draining the lifeblood away from Victoria's core itself. The proliferation of big box stores and hotels in Langford is helping to empty out business from Downtown which is now becoming a high crime area. Further, the development is putting a strain on our local services like water and highway systems. Why should the rest of Victoria have to pay just so a group of developers and petty Langford politicans can get their egos stroked? The Langford Mayor and Council is incredibly selfish in that he expects the entire region and city to pay for these egomanic type megaprojects wrecking the wilderness and increasing the strain on CRD services. Langford should be kicked out of the CRD and forced to rely on its own damn water. Once the interchange becomes operational, it will cause even more traffic back-ups on Route 1 and guess what? The taxpayer will end up paying for another interchange or highway widening just for this disaster. The story behind Bear Mountain is based on revenge and betrayal. Len Barrie wrongfully cut down trees on private property that was not his to cut (the Royal Colwood Golf Club) and was as a result kicked out of the Club. Since then, he has been driven by revenge, bitterness and greed to create his new private playground and cut down more trees - which were the property of the people of the province and the local First Nation. It is time this fellow is stopped before he ruins more greenspace and kills more trees. Good luck and please stop Len!

It's great to protest, but when money is involved, protest alone does very little or nothing at all. I suggest a lifestyle change, leave the cities, nurture a piece of land, cultivate it, protect it, that way less energy would be used, less garbage produced and of course no one will ever build a highway on your property. Some may argue that land is expensive but not if you go commune and split with other environmentalists alike yourself, real change has to be revolutional, protest alone is nothing but a mere complaint. We can do better!

I'm a student in the ninth grade at dunsmuir middle school and me and my friend are apaled at wat is happend ing to langford , sure we needed a bit of new housing but isnt BC known for its beautiful land and wildlife. we are trying to get our friends to realize this as well and its working a bit. we are doing a school projecton it and trying to speak out as teens , by the time we have kids there will be no land left for them to enjoy as we did when we were young. my grandmother is in the bulding industry and I'm going against some ppl in my family whne I say STOP THE BUILDING but its the truth !

Public Opinion Report Now Available Online

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Save the Cave! Cheryl Bryce of the Songhees First Nation inspects the first sacred cave on Spaet Mountain, now destroyed by blasting. Photo: Paul Griffiths

Tripod over the cave

Bear Mountain: Stop the Madness!

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." Mahatma Gandhi

The more we look into the Bear Mountain resort and interchange development near Victoria, BC, the more we see that those pushing the project are determined to bulldoze rare ecosystems, First Nations heritage sites, and people's democratic rights in order to profit from expensive condos and overpriced real estate. But will they get away with it?

Developers and public officials completely failed to protect First Nations heritage sites in the area of Skirt (Spaet) Mountain in Langford. One sacred cave was destroyed by blasting and excavation in 2006, and a second may face the same fate in the coming weeks. City of Langford workers welded a steel grate over the entrance to Langford Lake Cave in February 2008 and then dumped several tons of boulders onto the grate. Dozens of culturally modified trees were cut down around the cave, which a Songhees Nation elder has named as a place of cultural significance. The interchange route will apparently intersect the 80-meter-long cavern, and blasting could begin at any time.

Garry oak ecosystems - the rarest forests in BC - have been mowed down and bulldozed, destroying the oaks, camas flower meadows, and related plant life on the rocky bluffs and plateaus of Skirt Mountain. The City of Langford maintains that protection plans and studies on rare mammals, amphibians, and reptiles in the area are not needed. Ponds and wetlands on and around the mountain are home to pacific tree frogs, red-legged frogs, great horned owls, screech owls, pileated woodpeckers, and dozens of other species that deserve protection.

Meanwhile, Langford city council has maneuvered to shut voters out of the approval process on a $25 million loan to finance the interchange. This comes after the city refused to dialogue or consult with concerned citizens and groups who requested meetings, sent letters, and made submissions to council for over two years. More than two thousand residents signed a petition in January urging council to reconsider the borrowing bylaws, and still the city refuses to acknowledge the issue. The province has likewise turned a deaf ear to voters while kicking in $5 million and leaving taxpayers on the hook for the rest of the bill if the developers default. A persistent aura of corruption and conflict of interest hangs over the project, which is aggressively promoted by Langford councillors.

Those who oppose the development face a level of retaliation rarely seen in North America. A small peace camp set up in the path of the interchange was evicted in February by dozens of heavily armed RCMP officers pointing assault rifles. Over a hundred officers patrolled a kilometer-wide exclusion zone near the Trans-Canada highway for three days while feller-bunchers clearcut the forest. Shortly after, Langford mayor Stewart Young declared he would try to recover the cost of the police operation by suing the campers. On February 29, project manager Les Bjola helped organize a "goon squad" of 200 construction contract-ors that descended on a small rally on the highway, assaulting several people, destroying signs and banners, and threatening those speaking out against the destruction.

The lack of any assessments of the delicate karst (limestone) geology and watercourse hydrology in the area may leave the new interchange subject to collapse, sinkholes, and widespread watershed contamination due to runoff. Sewage, silt, and chemicals from the new development are already filtering into streams that flow down Skirt Mountain into Florence Lake and Langford Lake.

Challenging this aggressive development on Vancouver Island has created a grassroots network that covers half the province, and future developments will never be the same. We are grateful to everyone who's given their energy to this campaign.

Why We're Defending Langford Cave

Indigenous people have used Langford Cave for spiritual practice for generations. We know the cave has a name in the Songhees language. Because this kind of knowledge is closely guarded by the elders, outsiders are not permitted to know the name of the cave. But dozens of people - both native and non-native - camping and visiting the site have been touched by the spirit of the place. The diversity of birds, medicinal plants, mosses and cave-dwelling insects is astonishing. We are determined to protect this unique cave and the ecosystem that surrounds it by all peaceful means.

All about wildlife, sacred caves, & big development (pdf)

Langford Cave Photo Essay, Maps and More

Wildlife, caves and First Nations cultural sites, or greed and unethical development?

We are taking to the trees to stop a huge development project, including a new highway, that would destroy mature forests, watersheds, rare caves, traditional indigenous sites and wildlife near Victoria, BC. Bear Mountain is the name given to the place by the developers of Bear Mountain Resort and Properties. The city of Langford named it Skirt Mountain, and the Songhees Nation name is Spaet, which means "bear."

Until 2001 much of SPAET Mountain was classified as a "Forest Lands Reserve" (Crown land owned by the public). The behind-the - scenes sale of this land adds up to a form of political corruption. Corporate profit from hastily planned development schemes in this area depend on a new road infrastructure financed by public funds such as the $30 million Bear Mountain Interchange on the Trans Canada Highway (1). To connect to it, two roads are being constructed: the Savory Road Connector and the Bear Mountain Parkway. Both roads bisect forests buffering Goldstream Park, a much loved nature attraction, further diminishing its fragile and already endangered ecology.

The infrastructure for Bear Mountain Resort includes the Malahat Corridor, promoted as an alternative to Malahat Drive. The new highway will carve SPAET Mountain in two and cross over Saanich Inlet, giving city commuters direct access to the new development scheme at Bamberton. BC's gung-ho Ministry of Transportation has partnered with Stantec, the engineering empire that paved over most of Edmonton, Alberta.

SPAET Mountain is being destroyed by a clandestine land grab. In 2001 the BC government transfered 44 hectares of land to Western Forest Products for the giveaway price of $1.05 million. Within six months the land was sold to the Bear Mountain Resort developer for the same price and zoning regulations were altered, courtesy of the local pro-business mayor. The result is the cancer-like urban sprawl of golf courses, residential subdivisions, roads, hotels and strip malls. All this can be easily observed by anyone using Google Earth satellite and mapping technology.

The corruption surrounding the SPAET Mountain land grab involves big business and elected officials eager to make a quick buck. Community and environmental issues such as municipal water supply, pollution from golf courses and sewage, changes to the fragile watershed hydrology, public transport infrastructure, etc. have not been addressed. Bears and other large wild animals have no place to go as their mountainside habitat disappears. Bear Mountain Resort has already killed one resident "problem" bear and there are certainly other unreported instances.